Yes
63% (281)

No
37% (167)

448 total votes.

What are your Reuben E. Lee memories?

A great date? A memorable dinner? A prom you'd rather forget? Share your recollections in the comments below.

“It was the quintessential San Diego tourist thing,” said Erik Gosswiller, 55, who first ate there as a boy. “You went to the Reuben E. Lee, then to the Zoo and Balboa Park and maybe SeaWorld. But always the Reuben E. Lee.”

Well, not always. The restaurant closed in 2004 and is now capsizing at its berth at R.E. Staite Engineering, a shipyard where this ersatz steamboat was to have been repaired. The news of this institution’s sinking fortunes stirred countless memories of the prom dates, anniversaries and birthdays that were celebrated on these decks.

But many felt a twinge of nostalgia. “It was so neat,” said David Salisbury of his first dinner aboard the Lee, “especially for a third-grader!”

If this restaurant won over generations of children by borrowing some Disneyland pixie dust — it bore a strong resemblance to the amusement park’s Mark Twain Riverboat — it began with a pinch of glamour. The restaurant opened in January 1968 with a surprise birthday party for Claudine Longet, the French-born singer and then-wife of singer Andy Williams. The guest list included celebrities from Hollywood (Jack Lemmon, Fred MacMurray, Susan Saint James) and sports (golfers Billy Casper and Doug Sanders, plus Williams himself, who was hosting a PGA tournament at Torrey Pines).

The Reuben E. Lee was in need of major repairs when it closed in 2004. This image was taken the following year.
— John Gibbins

The Reuben E. Lee was in need of major repairs when it closed in 2004. This image was taken the following year.
— John Gibbins

But the restaurant passed through a series of owners and endured numerous reboots. In its time, the vessel hosted seafood restaurants, a steakhouse, a Cantonese place, a nightclub. The food pleased many diners but won few visits from critics, most of whom figured that the county was amply stocked with restaurants that offered less theatrical exteriors but more accomplished cuisine.

A memorable experience

The Reuben E. Lee was the dream of John Reuben McIntosh, an Orange County businessman whose chain of restaurants included a similar paddle-wheeler in Newport Beach. For years, the Reuben E. Lee, moored on the east end of Harbor Island with an unimpeded view of San Diego’s waterfront, was a dining destination. So was Reuben’s, the restaurant McIntosh built nearby.

Reuben’s is long gone — Island Prime/C-Level now occupies its space. While Island Prime/C-Level executive chef Deborah Scott never ate at the Reuben E. Lee, she explored the shuttered vessel when her restaurant briefly used it for storage.

“You could tell that when it was new, it was definitely state-of-the-art,” she said. “There was a lot of brass in the steakhouse area, a nice captain’s table up top. I’m sure it had a lot of charm when it opened up.”

Salisbury, once an impressionable third-grader and now a 39-year-old executive with a San Diego law firm, remembers the Reuben E. Lee as the highlight of his first trip to San Diego. His family lived in Paso Robles then, and the boy was dazzled by the white vessel’s three decks, two soaring black chimneys and red paddles turning slowly — and futilely. Built atop an anchored barge, the Reuben E. Lee wasn’t going anywhere.

The interior featured plush carpeting, wooden trim, framed prints of 19th century riverboats. You could hear the vessel creak and, when ships slipped past, the dining room gently rocked.

For a third-grader, this was fine — make that finest — dining.

“It was such a cool experience,” Salisbury said. “We didn’t have any steamboats in Paso Robles.”

The main deck could hold 250 diners. Upstairs, the Texas deck had room for 80 more diners. There was also room for dining or cocktails outdoors.

Despite its versatility, this vessel had its drawbacks as a restaurant. Mark Nagles remembers being dazzled by the Reuben E. Lee as a child, but he was less enamored when, as an adult working for Challenge Dairy, he made deliveries here. This involved stacking milk and butter and cheese on a handtruck, then pushing the whole lot across the gangplank.

He reached the other side without incident. Often. Still, Nagles, said, “There’s a lot of chocolate milk at the bottom of San Diego Bay.”

Destination unknown

Fashions change and this institution seemed moored to the past. When the steamboat’s lower deck became home to Jared’s, an upscale steakhouse, in 1999, critics gushed — about the views.

When the Reuben E. Lee closed five years later, its fate was uncertain. For a while, Scott and her partners at Island Prime/C-Level, David and Leslie Cohn, considered refurbishing and reopening the place.

“But once we looked into it, saw the shape of it, we knew it wouldn’t work,” Scott said.

The current owners, Sunroad Enterprises, had planned to trim away the superstructure and install a new deck over the hull. But on Friday, Sunroad told the U-T that those plans are on hold until the company can assess the hull’s condition.

“If it is not sound,” said Tom Story, the company’s vice president for development, “I presume that the Reuben E. Lee will be cut up for salvage.”

Story did not return phone calls Monday.

No matter what her ultimate destination, the Reuben E. Lee will continue to sail through many fans’ memories. In 1991, Salisbury moved to San Diego, partly to attend college and partly to resume his boyhood love affair with a certain paddlewheeling restaurant. For years, he took dates there, but not to eat. After the place had closed, Salisbury and his companion would sneak across the gangplank, then climb the outdoor staircase to the top deck. There, they cuddled beneath the pilothouse.

“You had this iconic view of downtown San Diego and you could watch the planes land,” Salisbury said. “That was the perfect place to steal a kiss.”